How Small Business Owners Can Have Productive Mornings Everyday

Are you obsessed with being productive?

At SRK we are obsessed with being productive and we want to ensure all small business owners are too.

We don’t want to be a traditional accounting practice; inefficient, working 14 hour days and making mistakes with client work. Our dream is to work 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, meet all deadlines, exceed client expectations and love our work.

Work-life balance is important if you are trying to create a business for the long term. But you won’t achieve it working like 99% of others. Their morning routine consists of creating inward, reactive energy by first checking emails, then reading the newspaper and starting work without a plan. As priorities change throughout the day so does their to do list, the stress levels rise and the day is ended feeling like nothing got done. Multi-tasking further exacerbates the problem.

In this blog post I’ll run through morning routines, how to plan a to do list, and how to be productive for the entire day.

Here is how my morning looks today and why:

4-30am Wake up – why? I used to get up at 5.30am because I like to get up before everyone else, have a cup of coffee and a protein shake and get down to my ‘on the business thinking time’ early before any distractions. However, after reading Morning Miracle I was inspired to implement an even earlier rise of 4.30am! I was so inspired by the book I even purchased one for every member of my team.

Next, I meditate using the headspace app for 10-20 minutes before starting my daily RPM and getting my caffeine kick!

Then, before switching on an electronic device I sit with a piece of paper (a post it note is ideal) and plan the day. The best way I have found to do this is to write the 6/7 things that are really on your mind on the left. Then put a tick next to each one if you would be satisfied if that is all you achieved today, put a second tick if the completed to do would make the other things on your list easier.

It looks something like this:

I take this one step further and note the to dos, with time to complete along a calendar as below:

You can also plan in your lunch, morning or evening workout and add some personal to dos you want to complete (again follow the same process to end up with 2/3 personal items).

The hardest part is sticking to this routine through the day, but with these tips you can’t fail to be more productive. Once you have mastered this you can guarantee the ‘on the business time’ by blocking out time in your calendar. I allow for 2 hours each morning on professional development, business development or creative thinking. This runs from when you get up and have completed your morning ritual to when you plan to start client work. It’s important to do this first when your creative brain is fresh and firing on all cylinders!